By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
It strikes me that there are two opinions about the “friendlier face” that Pope Francis is presenting to the world. One is that Francis is attempting to move the Church slowly but surely — even deviously — into accepting serious doctrinal changes on issues such as Holy Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics and homosexuality. Some who take this position go so far as to charge the Pope with heresy.
The second opinion is that Francis’ goal is merely to encourage those who have left the Church because of its teachings to come home, to reconcile themselves with the Church and the Catholic community; that Francis has no intention of altering Church doctrine because of this welcoming call, but merely to gently coax those who are engaged in actions condemned by the Church to find some way to alter their behavior so as to remain members of the Church and entitled to the sacraments.
I have no opinion poll to prove this, but I am confident that this latter view is the one held by the majority of the world’s Catholics who hold the Pope in such high regard. It is my view.
Yet I have to admit that it may be a mistake to think that appreciable numbers of those who tell us they were “raised Catholic” but no longer feel at home in the Church will respond in good faith to Francis’ openness and compassion. It could be that they are not seeking a “friendlier” Catholic Church but one that abandons every trace of its mission as historically understood.
I offer as proof a column by Kathleen Ferraro that appeared on the Huffington Post on February 20, entitled “Catholic Church: It’s Not Me, It’s You.”
I don’t want to appear dismissive of Ferraro, who identifies herself as a student at Northwestern University from a “devoutly Roman Catholic family from a primarily Catholic community largely dominated by Catholic institutions, schools, values, and beliefs.” Her views on religion are likely to go through many stages during her years as a young adult. She appears to mean well. But what she is proposing is a Catholic Church that makes no claim — none — to any divine mandate and teaching authority. She is asking the Church to concede that it is the backward-thinking leftover from our medieval past that its critics claim it to be.
She is free to take that position, of course. It is what makes atheists atheists; and Unitarians Unitarians. It is the motive behind the modern calls for “self-fulfillment,” “being true to oneself,” and “doing it my way.” It is what makes subjectivists, moral relativists, and secular existentialists who they are.
But it is not what Jesus taught. He called us to “come and follow” Him, even when our personal wishes would lead us to do otherwise. That is why He spoke of “taking up our cross” — adding that we would not regret doing so because “my yoke is easy, the burden is light.”
Let us consider what Ferraro asks of the Church. She calls for the Church to “earnestly engage” with young people with “different conceptualizations of faith” before these “young individuals disillusioned with organized religion are lost to the realms of independent spirituality and atheism.” She adds, “If the people are the church, then the church should include the people — divergent souls as well.” She includes herself among the divergent souls.
She speaks about “old-fashioned values and traditions” in the Church regarding “the LGBTQ community,” arguing that she can’t “understand why” sitting “in the first pew at church trumps participating in a climate march, or why accepting doctrine on faith alone beats independent thinking, questioning, and customizing one’s religious life.” She contends that religion for her is not “a competition for piety” but a “humble quest for personal growth and spiritual connection.” She adds, “I am pro-choice, don’t go to church on Sundays, don’t put stock in the Bible or doctrine, and challenge traditional ideas of religion and spirituality.”
Yet she complains of how this view of morality separates her from Catholic life, which most of her family and many friends still cherish. “I differ, and am thus discounted.” She complains that she finds herself “an outsider, subject to the Catholic exclusivity that prompts me to reject Catholicism in the first place. It’s a perplexing paradox — my beliefs exclude me and define me as an independent. And because my beliefs disqualify me from active participation, I am consequently excluded from a community that I want to engage. . . . I would say ‘it’s not you, it’s me,’ but I think ‘it’s not me, it’s you,’ is equally appropriate.”
She closes with the following: “I am not saying that my beliefs are right, but I am saying that I want to be heard, not just listened to.”
Sorry. She wants to be more than heard. She wants to be agreed with; for the Church to concede that the Catholic Church has no right to teach in Jesus’ name, and that the Church has been in error for centuries for maintaining otherwise. Most priests, certainly those who minister to college students, would sit down and engage Ferraro with patience and understanding. Certainly the Pope would. They would “hear” her. What they would not do is agree to dismantle Catholicism in the manner she calls for.
Ferraro is asking the Church to accept that it has been wrong in standing firm against sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman, to admit that abortion may be warranted in a great many cases, indeed, in as many cases as there are women with an opinion in the matter. Remember, that is what you mean when you say abortion should be a “woman’s choice.”
Nowhere in the world is there a religious group, sect, denomination, even school of thought, that is as latitudinarian in its beliefs, as Ferraro is asking the Catholic Church to become. I would wager that Quakers and Unitarians would find some way to exclude from their services someone who constantly took the floor to condemn the congregation for not adhering to literal interpretations of the Bible. They would take him aside and say, “This is not what we are about.”
Come on: Even members of an organization devoted to discussing the dangers of global warming would not permit their meetings to be dominated by group of climate-change deniers.
That is what political correctness in the academic world is all about. Every group has an orthodoxy of some sort; some form of heresy that it does not grant legitimacy, views that it disapproves of in a public manner. At the very least, the Catholic Church deserves the same right to define itself.
Kathleen Ferraro is not the first person to leave the Catholic Church, especially during their college years. We should not celebrate her departure with any smart-aleck comments. The Church will welcome her with open arms if she one day decides to return. But she is being unreasonable in asking the Church to redefine itself to conform to what she calls the “customizing” of her religious belief.
I hope the people who advise Pope Francis understand how much they would have to transform Catholicism to accommodate people with her frame of mind.
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